


run over the future

by Nemainofthewater



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Don’t copy to another site, Extra Treat, F/F, Fluff, Romance, The End of the World, set during the 18 months LOLOMG were missing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:48:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21760066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nemainofthewater/pseuds/Nemainofthewater
Summary: It's the end of the world. Saira can afford to be selfish.
Relationships: Liliana Bekos/Saira al-Tahan
Comments: 8
Kudos: 18
Collections: Rusty Quill Secret Santa 2019





	run over the future

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Flammenkobold](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flammenkobold/gifts).



The door opens. Saira sighs.

“I don’t have time today,” she says flatly, not looking up from the pile of paperwork littering her desk, “Get back to me in, oh. Another month or so once I’ve sorted through this.”

“Rude.”

Saira looks up.

_“Liliana??”_

It is her. Standing cool as you please at the entrance of Saira’s office. It’s been a good long while since they’ve seen each other: if she remembers correctly it would have been Hamid’s second Christmas at Cambridge when the entire family had travelled down to dine at his College and celebrate with him.

Since then several things have happened, including her brother being kicked out of Cambridge, Liliana breaking up with him, her brother and father being arrested (on the same charge), the disappearance of two more brothers, and oh. Just the end of the world.

She looks the same with her hair bundled behind her in what is clearly meant to be a no-nonsense bun, and possibly was several hours ago. Now hair is sticking out from it at every which angle and Liliana is continuously brushing it out of her eyes. Her clothes are neat, professional but they also look comfortable. Easy to clean. Liliana’s always had an academic, absent-minded air about her but Saira knows that it hides a core of steel.

“Who else would it be?” Liliana asks, as if the last that anyone had heard of her hadn’t been that she’d disappeared in Prague.

Saira sighs. Closes her eyes and just breathes for a few moments.

“Lili,” she says, the familiar nickname slipping out involuntarily, “I don’t know whether you’ve noticed, but I’m too busy to-”

“Oh don’t worry.” Liliana interrupts her, walking forward to casually perch on the edge of Saira’s desk and absently page through some of her paperwork. Saira slaps at one of her hands but it’s half-hearted. Honestly, the information stopped making sense half an hour ago and that was before her migraine started. She doesn’t hold much hope in anyone who hasn’t been mired in the accumulation of everyday responsibilities that have become her life understanding even a fraction of it. And if they are able to then all they’re going to be able to glean is that they’re running dangerously short on food. And even an idiot could surmise that. “I’m here to help. Didn’t Wilde tell you?”

Saira scowls. _Wilde_. While she is forced to admit that the man in a competent agent his methods leave a lot to be desired. And not just because he managed to get Hamid in over his head and _disappeared_. Their conversations of late have become especially frosty. He’s kind (or guilty) enough not to comment on it. If Wilde has something to do with Liliana’s sudden reappearance, then nothing good can come of it.

“He didn’t say anything,” Saira replies stiffly, repressing the urge to heap further recriminations upon the man, “Though if he did, I assume that it would be to Curie. Not me.”

Liliana shrugs. “I might have said that you’d vouch for me,” she says.

“ _Vouch for you_ \- what-”

A letter is placed in front of her _Saira_ written in an elegant hand. Picking it up she frowns. It smells like perfume.

“Does Wilde,” she says, “Really think that a letter is going to explain all of this? Lili, what have you done?”

Liliana’s face hardens. “Nothing,” she says, “I’ve done nothing. Nothing but come up with a power source that could revolutionise the world. I shouldn’t be held accountable for what other people have done with my work-” She cuts herself off.

“Just- read the letter,” she says. And then she slips off Saira’s desk and walks out the room.

Saira blinks. Runs her hands through her hair, cursing as she realises that she’s smeared ink all over her face. And then opens the letter. And reads it.

#

Saira let Liliana stay. It should feel like a mistake but it doesn’t.

She doesn’t hear much from Liliana over the next few weeks. Well. That’s not true. She hears _of_ Liliana almost every day. Whether from complaints from Ismail about Liliana taking over the old nursery for her laboratory or the fact that for a good week straight the sounds of construction ringing through the house drove everyone crazy or that one day a fire elemental briefly escaped into the garden and left piles of twisted glass statues littered across the lawn. Liliana isn’t a quiet, subdued presence. She never has been as far as Saira can remember. But now she’s twice as loud, staring down her detractors and her advocates alike with the same obstinate fire.

Because of course it can’t be easy. Of course it can’t. Because when has anything for Saira Hawaa Layla al Tahan been easy? 

Liliana Bekos started the apocalypse. Liliana Bekos was working for the good of all. Liliana Bekos was trying to destroy the Meritocrat’s tyranny. Liliana Bekos was manipulated by Kafka. Liliana Bekos set Kafka up to fail. Liliana Bekos is a traitor. Liliana Bekos is a hero. Somewhere, she is certain, Wilde is laughing at her.

It gives Saira a headache just thinking about it, so she tries not to. Gladly buries herself in the paperwork and day to day minutia that she had previously held in such contempt and convinces herself that there are more important things to worry about. Like the end of the world.

So of course, the tension comes to a head only a few days later.

Saira leaves her office for the first time in a good few hours in search of a cup of tea with a generous dollop of honey in it. Or, more realistically in this climate of austerity, a mug of boiling water that she can sip slowly and imagine it has tea in it. She’s dawdling, not eager to have to return to her stuffy office and her piles of paperwork when she hears it. The distinctive sound of something exploding. It’s a sound that she’s intimately familiar with, what with her family being as it is.

She takes off at a run hoping that she can get to the source of the problem before severe structural damage occurs. She takes a left, then a right, then another right and realises that she’s heading toward Liliana’s lab. Maybe, she hopes, maybe it’s just another experiment gone wrong, maybe it’s nothing serious….

Her hopes are dashed to shreds pretty quickly because outside the lab is a pile of groaning, slightly singed bodies. And Liliana standing in front of them, hands still outstretched and a fierce expression on her face.

“What happened?” Saira demands.

“She attacked us,” one of the figures on the ground, a halfling though Saira can’t tell more than that as they’re obscured by the bodies of their compatriots.

“Is that true?” Saira asks Liliana. Who scowls back at her, an obstinate twist to her mouth.

“ _Yes_.” She hisses. “But they were the ones who-”

Saira raises a hand. “I don’t have enough resources, time, or energy to deal with you all,” she says, “So I’m letting you all off with a warning this time.”

“But she threw a fireball-!”

Saira turns on them. “She decided to ambush-” she does a quick head count, “-five individuals? Outside of her own laboratory? Liliana may be many things but stupid isn’t one of them. So if I were you, I’d take this reprieve as the miracle it is and make sure that I don’t have to deal with this situation again. Because I assure you, you won’t like the consequences.”

She stares them in the eyes, one by one. And one by one they avert their gazes in shame. She waits a beat more, making sure that the message really sinks in. And then she gestures at Liliana to follow her and leaves. Back to her office.

The walk back is in awkward silence. As has become the norm between them. She ushers Liliana into her office and closes the door behind her with a decisive click.

“I was handling it!”

Saira ignores Liliana’s outburst in favour of sinking into her office chair with a sigh. She should really bring this to Curie. She’s the one in charge of this whole operation. Saira just deals with logistics and housing everyone. She would be perfectly within her rights to just… dump this whole mess on Curie’s lap. She should.

She won’t.

“I know you were,” she says rubbing her eyes, “But in the interests of not destroying the house…”

Liliana scoffs at her. “You think that I have so little control that I would burn the house down? I know that you don’t like me, but at least have faith in my abilities.”

Saira takes a deep breath. Holds it. Lets it out slowly.

“I don’t hate you,” she says starting with the most important point, “I really don’t Lili. I never did. Not even when you broke my brother’s heart. And I don’t want you to think that I do now. We’re friends. Or at least I thought we were. And I’m not going to abandon you now.”

Saira stands and, moving slowly to give Liliana plenty of time to react, draws the other woman into a hug. For a brief moment it’s like hugging a marble pillar. And then Liliana collapses forward and clings to Saira. She doesn’t speak, neither of them speak, they just hold each other tightly.

“I don’t hate you,” Saira whispers into Liliana’s hair, “If you believe anything at all, believe that.”

#

There’s something growing between them. Something small and fragile, lifting its delicate head like the first buds of spring.

They don’t talk about it. Not out loud. Not unless their language of furtive looks and smiles and soft touches count as talking.

When Saira finds a cup of tea, proper tea not the hot water that she’s been trying to convince herself is tea, steaming gently on her desk, does that mean love? When she spends a good five hours and more of her personal funds than she would care to admit on procuring a head of beer cheese, something that Liliana refuses to admit she’s grown addicted to from her time in Prague, is she telling her that she loves her back?

Sometimes in the evenings when they sit curled together and work on their own projects, Saira wonders whether she’s being selfish. Because it’s the end of the world. For everyone. And she’s never been so _happy_.

**Author's Note:**

> I am on Tumblr as [Nemainofthewater ](https://nemainofthewater.tumblr.com)


End file.
